Monday, October 01, 2012

With the death of Mohammed Hashi Damac (Gaarriye),
the Somali people have lost a great poet and a literary custodian. Apart from
the many masterpieces and deeply intellectual poetry that he left behind,
Gaarriye will be remembered in particular for his monumental efforts in
founding and teaching the metrical structure of Somali poetry. He is to Somali
poetry what Al Khalil ibn Ahmed Al Farahidi is to Arabic poetry.

I had the honour of meeting Gaarriye in July 1998
when we both participated in a poetry evening at a fund-raising event for Amoud
University in Abu Dhabi. One cannot find words to mourn the loss of such a
literary giant, but silence at such a great calamity is not an option either especially
from a fellow poet.

Therefore, I wrote the following elegy to capture at
least some glimpses of his memory as a poet. I will suffice myself to convey to
the readers the impression I got from him during the almost four-hour awareness
raising event and my social interaction with him the following day.

The poem will try to shed light on his versatile
character and the unique style of his delivery, his strong presence and his
passionate and electrifying engagement with the audience during poetry
recitations.

Gaarriye used to appear in a fighting mood when
reciting a poem. He used to muster all his physical, emotional and intellectual
power to interact with the audience. His sonorous voice that rose and fell with
the intonation of the verse defied his petite physical look. He roared,
electrified and mesmerised the audience. As the American sports writer Tom
Smith is attributed to have said: “it is really very easy to be a writer – all
you have to do is sit down at the typewriter and open a vein.” So if Gaarriye
opened a vein in writing his poems, he opened many veins in trying to pass his
poetry’s ownership to his audience.His
style reminded me of a line by the Arab Abbasid poet Abu Tayyeb Al Mutanabi who
said:

أنا الذي نظر
الأعمى إلى أدبي/ و أسمعت كلماتي من به صمم

(I
am the one whose poetry even the blind can see and made even the deaf hear my
words.)

My tribute poem, therefore, tries to capture this
with the following lines:

Carraduu
ka goohuu

Gucumaale
aar iyo

Siduu
yahay gudgude roob

Gurxanka
iyo yeedhmada

Ka
gariirin jiray iyo...

Although
every poem in Gaarriye’s anthology can constitute a masterpiece by itself, I
can arguably say that the most important poems of all his verse will remain Ergo
and Hagarlaawe. Just like Timacadde has been immortalized by his “Kaana
siib, Kanna Saar” and his “Dugsi ma leh qabyaaladi” and Sayyid
Mohamed Abdulle Hassan is remembered by his poem “ Koofilow Adaa Jiitay oon
Dunida Joogayne...”, remembering Gaarriye’s name will also invoke the
following lines in the memory of the Somali speaking people:

It was reported
that when the Abbassid poet and philosopher Abu Al Ala Al Marri heard one of Al
Mutanabi’s lines he admired it so much to the extent that he said: if Al
Mutanabi did not write any other poetry but that line it would have been
enough. The line was:

لك يا منازل في القلوب منازل

(O, my homesteads, you have homes in my heart)

I can also
arguably say that if Gaarriye did not write any other poetry but Ergo
and Hagarlaawe they would have by themselves constituted an entire
anthology due to their profundity and literary richness.

In the
following stanza of my tribute I tried to sum up the depth, breadth and
intellectuality of Gaarriye’s works:

Wallee gabay
mug weyn iyo

Murti
gaaxinteediyo

Ma la hoyday
geeraar

Iyo garasho waaayeel

For non-Somali speakers, in the fourth stanza it
mentions how he was a man of tenacity, an ebbless river and a fearless hero
under whose protection people felt safe. It describes his words as shooting out
of his heart like arrows (Abwaan erayaduu gano) but turning into the sweet
fruits of the Gob tree when they reach the ears of his audience. It marks how
his words echo with the people and are quoted as maxims on every occasion. It
shows how he was an ever lit fire from which people took embers to warm up; a
man of bounty whose generosity reached all the community and a man of integrity
(gob – sweet fruits) in supporting justice and thorns in the tyrant’s side (Ma
ahaa gob iyo qodax).

In the 5th stanza the poem reassures
Gaarriye that a man like him who travelled through the journey of life; both
good days and bad days, who witnessed the days of independence (Gobaad) with
its dreams and promises and later saw war and hostilities and stood on the
ruins of once prosperous cities ( Guluf iyo colaad iyo, Guri ba’ay dul
joogsaday...); a man who promoted peace and good neighbourliness; a man who
rejected injustice and evil (his Ergo and Hagarlaawe poems in mind); A man who
left behind such enormous history cannot be buried by death ( Taarikh gu’ weyn
dhigay, geeridu ma duugtee).

The last stanza applauds Gaarriye’s command of the
Somali language and his talent and skill in weaving verses with grace and
beauty. It finds a befitting conclusion to bid him farewell in words of lyric
(Tix baan kugu gunaanaday).